Silence wrapped around me, heavy and oppressive, only breaking with the guttural growls of unseen predators, their echoes threading through the hollowed-out structures, mourning the lost city.
I moved slowly, each step calculated. The city loomed in jagged spires of broken steel, shadows twisted across the ground like hands reaching for a rescue that wasn’t coming.
My throat burned with each breath, but I pushed on, forcing each step through the haze, until a smell hit me—burnt, sharp. Not the usual city rot. I froze, instincts prickling, then followed it like a trail of bad decisions.
The fog parted just enough to reveal an open square. A battlefield, scorched and gutted. Craters and debris marked the spot, like the earth had gotten fed up and gone to war with itself. And right in the middle, the skeletal remains of a military droid—a giant that had seen better days. Its armor was mangled, scorched, and something about the way it slumped there felt almost... defeated.
A faint pulse of light flickered from its chest, the last whispers of its systems dying. Around it, half-cooked monsters twitched in their final death throes, like nature hadn’t figured out they were done yet.
“Hell of a party,” Arvie’s tone was slick with sarcasm.
I pushed aside one of the droid’s limbs, freeing something wedged beneath—battle-scarred and glowing faintly: a plasma gun. It was still warm in my hands, humming like it had still fight left in it.
“Well, well,” Arvie quipped. “Looks like someone just leveled up.”
I gave the gun a once-over and turned to the twitching remains of the creatures scattered around the square. My finger found the trigger before my brain had fully caught up, bolts of plasma carving through the fog. One by one, the beasts went down, flashing and crumbling like bad ideas.
Only one was left. Huge. Ugly. Milky eyes locked onto me, blind yet aware. I fired again, the last shot putting it out of its misery—or maybe mine.
“Nice shooting, sir,” Arvie's tone was warm. “Now let’s see what this new toy can do.”
I inspected the gun. The interface flared in my head, quick flash of numbers, energy levels holding steady at a third. Enough to last a while or to function as a cutter in close quarters. I holstered it, the weight of it a quiet promise that the rules had just changed.
The ruins spread out ahead of me—jagged bones of forgotten systems, steel and concrete left to rot. The city's ghosts weren’t its people; they were the machines. Rogue defense turrets snapped to life as I passed, like old watchdogs who’d forgotten what they were guarding.
Their sensors jittered, glitching hard, spitting out bursts of fire in random staccato. I didn’t bother with stealth—no point when the city was throwing a tantrum. I weaved through the chaos, every step a dance with danger, every pause a calculated risk.
The ground wasn’t any friendlier. Razor shards of metal scattered underfoot, and every other step, my boot crushed glass that had probably seen better days before the collapse. Beneath it all, the streets groaned under the weight of their own decay.
Sludge pooled in the lower levels—neon-bright traps, just waiting to dissolve anything dumb enough to slip in. I steered clear of the holes, the places where the city had caved in, exposing a gaping underbelly of dark caverns below.
No way I was getting curious about those. Dark spaces down there were where things waited—the kind of things that didn’t make it to your nightmares because your brain was too scared to let them in.
Still, I pressed on. The real threat wasn’t the ground, or the turrets trying to remember how to aim. No, it was in the fog, moving like whispers in the back of your mind. Creatures, their shapes just out of focus, darted between broken walls and fallen spires.
You’d think you saw one, just a flicker, but by the time your brain caught up, it was gone. Always watching. Always waiting. I shot at the ones that crept too close, and being mostly scavengers, they learned quick to keep their distance.
“Steady as she goes,” Arvie piped up in my head, her voice a soft hum of humor that cut through the tension like a dull knife.
“Aye, because that’s what this is,” I muttered, dodging another crumbling overpass. “Smooth sailing.”
I kept my distance from the collapsed sectors. Too many shadows, too many bodies. The towers, though—what was left of them—offered higher ground. I climbed, the fractured walkways under my boots barely holding together, but they gave me a clear line of sight, just enough of a view to pretend I had control.
Then, of course, everything went sideways.
One of those defense turrets suddenly remembered how to aim. I felt the heat before I even heard the shot. The blast scorched the air just inches from my head, leaving the acrid scent of burnt ozone and close calls. My heart punched the inside of my ribs like it wanted out. I didn’t stop. Couldn’t afford to. I ducked behind a crumbling wall, the next barrage rattling the stone, sending dust and debris raining down.
"Maybe it's time to invest in some stealth tech," Arvie quipped, the humor still there but tinged with concern.
"Alright, I'll get right on that," I kept low, catching my breath. The turret's sensors went haywire again, firing wildly into the air, probably at a bright spot. Perfect. I slipped out from cover, back on the move, my mind already calculating the next five steps ahead.
Then, through the fog, I saw them again—those creatures. Just outlines, barely visible in the murk. They didn’t come at me directly. No, they waited. Biding their time, circling, waiting for the right moment to strike.
I adjusted the plasma gun on my hip. Its weight felt reassuring, but I knew it wouldn't be enough if they came in numbers. The gun had some energy left, and the last thing I wanted was to waste it on half-baked ambushes. Still, the creatures didn’t move, just hovered on the edge of my vision, daring me to get closer.
"One step at a time, captain," Arvie's voice chimed in my head, just enough dry humor to keep me from completely unraveling. "This place won’t care if you slip. "
“Thanks for the helpful insight.”
She didn’t respond, but I felt the amusement in the silence. I kept moving, eyes forward, stepping over another tangle of broken conduit. The ground beneath me was a patchwork of shattered stone and cracked tech, the kind of terrain that had a personality. And it wasn’t friendly.
“By the Divines,” I muttered, more to myself than her. “You ever get the feeling this city wants to eat us alive?”
Arvie chuckled. “It does, indeed.”
A low growl echoed from somewhere behind the ruins. It seemed the local wildlife had become restless again. I growled myself, scanning the wasteland.
"I’d keep moving if I were you," Arvie’s tone was far too cheerful, considering the circumstances. "The wild life here hasn’t exactly been through behavioral therapy."
"Great," I muttered, stepping over a fallen beam. "Any chance they’ve developed a taste for sarcasm?"
"More of a taste for flesh, really."
"Noted," I said dryly, picking up the pace.
Behind me, the city whispered of forgotten things, secrets etched into the fractured metal and rusting bones of its fallen infrastructure. Right now, survival seemed like the more pressing concern.
Up ahead, I spotted something—an opening between the crumbling buildings, a narrow passage leading to higher ground. It was a risk, sure, but it was better than staying down here with the fog and the things in it. I climbed, boots scraping on the rusted metal and shattered glass. The city groaned beneath me, a sound like the death rattle of a machine that had given up long ago.
By the time I reached the top, the creatures were gone. That made the climb worth it. The whole ruined city sprawled out below, a maze of decay and danger. I could see the path now, cutting through the chaos, leading to… something.
“Think that’s where our fate’s hiding?” I asked, not really needing Arvie to answer.
"Let’s hope so," she replied, dry as ever. "Because I’m not keen on sticking around here much longer."
I wasn’t either. I tightened my grip on the plasma rifle, its weight a reassuring presence against the chaos. In a world where danger was the default setting and every turn promised a gruesome end, that spark of confidence was the only thing keeping me going.539Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡshbMdbKEtO
